


Mark my days

by Yuu_chi



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Brief Smut, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 06:48:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5529929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuu_chi/pseuds/Yuu_chi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A relationship is a natural progression from one step to the next and Levi is willing to take all those steps and more if it’ll be with Eren.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mark my days

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Ylinea on tumblr for the ereri secret santa! I'll admit that being specified to write fluff and no angst at all was a challenge and a half for me, but I hope you enjoy this at least a little!

On their third anniversary Eren says, “Move in with me.”

It’s not so much a question as it is a demand. Levi pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Sorry?”

Now that he’s paying attention he can see the crease between Eren’s eyes, the way his fingers have been fiddling with the tablecloth for the whole of the meal. He looks half like he’s going to puke up the perfectly nice curry they’re eating and half like he’d keep talking even if he took a knife to the gut.

“Move in with me,” he says again, and then, “please,” and finally a bumbling, “I want you to move in with me. Please.”

Slowly, Levi sets aside his cutlery and stares. Eren’s cheeks are going red even as his knuckles on the table edge are going white.

“I love you,” Eren says, and even though it’s nowhere near the first time he’s said it Levi’s insides do a delighted shiver. “You know I love you. And I know you love me. And I know we talked about doing it when I was finished with school, but I just – it’s so far away.”

“You graduate in a year,” Levi says even though he whole heartedly agrees because he’s the adult here.

(Eren is twenty-three, but they started dating when he was twenty and Levi has never been able to shake the feeling of responsibility that comes with being ten years older.)

“Then why wait?” Eren says. He reaches for Levi’s hand across the table and Levi lets him. Eren’s fingers are warm and familiar even as his palms are sweaty. Levi finds that horrifyingly charming. “Between school and your work we hardly see each other.”

“We see each other at least three times a week.”

“ _Only_ three times a week, see what I mean?”

Despite himself Levi smiles. Eren could probably make him smile even if Levi was being led to the gallows.

“Please,” Eren says again, fumbling and earnest all at once. He squeezes Levi’s hand. “ _Please_.”

Levi keeps staring at him, the mess of his hair that he’d vainly tried to tame so the restaurant would let him in, the neat knot of his tie that Levi had to straighten for him, the adoration and desperation that are colouring his eyes from green to something _more_.

“No,” Levi says, and Eren’s expression freezes. Levi smiles. “If we’re doing this, then _you_ can move in with _me_. Your apartment is rubbish. Your door doesn’t even lock.”

Eren lets out a noise that is probably supposed to be a laugh but instead sounds like a strangled wheeze. “It does too lock. Sometimes. When it feels like it. And at least my apartment has a double bed.”

“Mine has a bath,” Levi counters.

“Your curtains are _floral_ ,” Eren says.

“At least I _have_ curtains. You have newspaper taped to the windows.”

“Only in the bathroom!”

“Alright,” Levi says, and he’s smiling now too, smiling so hard that his cheeks are hurting. “We’ll look for somewhere new then.”

Eren gives a muffled sound and hauls Levi across the table to kiss him with lips that taste like spice.

(Eren winds up with curry on his tie and Levi puts his hand in the tub of butter sitting center table.

It’s the best dinner Levi can ever remember having.)

.

The first apartment they look at has a fridge right next to the couch in the living room and a toilet next to the bed.

“We’ll take it,” Eren says immediately.

“We will _not_ ,” Levi says, and drags Eren out by the back of his shirt.

The second place at least has its necessities where they’re supposed to be, but Levi takes one look at the bathroom where there is mold growing in unreasonable places and leaves.

The one after that has a bedroom that is too small, and the one after that has a kitchen without an oven. Eren lobbies hard for a home with a spa and Levi nixes anything that even comes close to exceeding their budget.

Six weeks after they start looking they call past an inspection on a whim and Levi falls in love.

There is a toilet and a comfortable tub in the bathroom and no fridge in the living room. There is no mold anywhere that can’t be immediately reached and it sits neatly within their budget. The floors are a beautiful sepia coloured wood, too, and Levi bets they’d be a dream to clean.

“What do you think?” Eren asks, one hand in Levi’s and watching as Levi skates his fingers along the mantelpiece in the living room.

Levi looks at him and smiles.

“Yes?” Asks their realtor, and she looks so visibly relieved that Levi feels a little – but not quite – guilty.

“Yes,” Levi says in return and he squeezes Eren’s fingers, “this is it.”

.

They move in two weeks later and christen it by having sex in every room in the house.

“Christ,” Levi hisses, sweaty and gasping with legs that are trembling around Eren’s waist and a back sore from too many floors.

Eren gives a winded laugh at Levi’s throat just as his palms slip on the bathroom tiles and he sprawls on Levi without warning. Levi gives a shout, because the sudden and unexpected change in position had thrust Eren deeper, and he claws furrows into Eren’s shoulders as he comes.

“Alright?” Eren asks when Levi’s grip loosens and he goes boneless on the floor.

“ _No_ ,” Levi says, because the sex has been _fantastic_ and he hurts _everywhere_. “I can’t feel my legs.”

Eren laughs again and kisses him tenderly before pulling away. Levi lies on the floor staring at the ceiling while Eren cleans them up. He holds his hand up and tries to count off how many times Eren has made him orgasm today. He finds he doesn’t have enough fingers.

“Hey,” Eren says, and Levi looks down to see him settle in on Levi’s stomach, arms crossed and supremely unconcerned that the both of them are naked, sticky and on the floor. He can’t be comfortable – Levi certainly isn’t – but he looks blissed off his face.

“Hey yourself,” Levi says, reaching down to stroke his fingers through Eren’s hair. “We need a shower.”

“Water hasn’t been set up yet,” Eren says shamelessly.

“Cold drink?”

“No electricity,” Eren says, and then, after a moment of thought, “no fridge either.”

“We really should see what happened to our moving truck,” Levi says as he thumps his head down on the ground. “Do we have _anything_ here?”

“Well,” Eren drawls in a voice that _does_ things to Levi, “there’s that bench in the kitchen.”

“And?”

Eren smiles at him in a way that is more teeth than anything. “We haven’t fucked on _that_ yet.”

.

They develop a routine that goes like this:

Levi wakes up first. He has a shower and, sometimes, makes breakfast. The smell of cooking will usually lure Eren from the bedroom and they sit together at their too-small table and eat as their knees knock.

On the days where Eren doesn’t have class he washes the dishes while Levi showers for work. On the days he does they playfully fight over the shower even though they always wind up going in together. More shower than not they have sex; blowjobs or rutting together to let off steam before their days consume them.

Levi goes to work and Eren to school. What happens there happens, but Levi doesn’t include it as part of the routine because it doesn’t contain Eren.

Eren gets home first and tidies up the apartment so that Levi won’t have a heart attack when he walks in the door. Sometimes they have sex when Levi gets home, and sometimes, because a relationship is more than how many times you can get one another off, they don’t.

They don’t often go to bed at the same time, but when Levi wakes up the next morning to do it all again it’s always with Eren beside him.

.

They’ve been living together for eight months when Levi gets a promotion.

“That’s amazing!” Eren says when Levi tells him that night, the both of them sprawled together on the sofa watching reruns of something or another. Eren’s arm is deliciously warm where it’s draped over Levi’s stomach and his smile is positively radiant. “You’ve worked so, so hard for this. It’s about time they gave you a promotion.”

“Damn straight it is,” Levi says, and he watches Eren carefully as he says, “but this means I’m going to be working longer hours for a while.”

“Oh,” Eren says. He sags a little. “For how long?”

“I don’t know,” Levi sighs, and he leans down to kiss Eren on the forehead. “A while, probably. I need to prove they can trust me with this.”

“How long are these extra hours?”

Levi hesitates. “I probably won’t be home for dinner most nights.”

“Oh,” says Eren again, and although he doesn’t protest because he’s a Good Boyfriend, Levi feels the way he clings to him a little tighter, can see the downwards droop in his cheeks that means he’s trying his hardest to hold back a frown.

Levi’s has known him and loved him for five years and had him for four. He would know how Eren was feeling even if he was wearing a mask.

“It’s not forever,” he says, smoothing his hands along Eren’s cheeks and them up to push the hair from his face, “just for now.”

“Just for now,” Eren repeats, and he even manages a smile that isn’t totally fake – and Levi loves him for it.

.

Levi’s job is as ugly as Eren is beautiful.

He works as a court assigned lawyer and the cases he takes on often leave him tired and feeling morally dirty. It hasn’t paid well so far and he doesn’t feel like he’s changing the world, but it’s the bottom rung of a ladder and Levi is determined to climb it.

The promotion though makes it worse before it gets better.

Levi is juggling a half a dozen cases at any one time, in and out of courts and meetings and visiting jail cell after jail cell. He can barely find time for lunch and spends most of his breaks shoving the cheapest, nearest thing into his mouth at his desk while going through paperwork.

(Levi had learnt to read a graphic murder report and enjoy a taco at the same time his first year on the job. For a lawyer the ability to function despite the odds is a necessary if somewhat disheartening evil.)

He gets up a full two hours before Eren in the mornings and most evenings when he comes home Eren is in bed. There are weeks where he doesn’t see Eren for more than a half hour a day, and usually when he’s snoring into his pillow.

It is, frankly, awful.

Levi misses him like a drowning man’s lungs might miss air. It’s a difficult thing to want so much when the answer to is right next to you – to be so close yet so far.

It’s not just Eren’s support he misses, the way Eren can make a bad day good just by smiling, but it’s smaller, simpler things. He misses the way Eren’s leans over his shoulder to reach the juice in the morning, the way he collapses on top of him on the sofa in the evening. He misses Eren’s laugh, his voice, every stubborn, stupid word to come from his mouth.

The extra work is necessary if Levi ever wants to be able to pick and choose who he defends in a court of law, but the way it’s impacting his relationship with Eren is literally killing him.

He comes home one night after a week of nothing but paper and stress and finds the lights on.

“Eren?” He calls as he opens the door, keys in one hand and jacket in the other. There’s a noise coming from the living room and Levi frowns and follows it.

He finds Eren passed out on the couch, the TV playing infomercials loudly so it drowns out Eren’s quiet breaths. His glasses are perched on his nose and there’s a biology textbook open in his lap, and that’s all the evidence Levi needs to know that Eren had been trying to wait up for him.

His heart aches sudden and fiercely, because _fuck_ he adores this man more than he has words for.

Levi turns the TV off and then takes the book from Eren’s lap. His hands fall uselessly to his side without anything to support them. Eren’s glasses come off next, set gently aside, and Levi tenderly strokes his fingertips along his cheek as he removes them.

“Eren,” he says softly and Eren wakes instantly but dazedly.

“I’m awake,” he slurs although he does not look it. He blinks twice and then, “Levi?”

“Yeah,” Levi says, and he leans in to kiss him.

Eren makes a small, surprised noise but kisses him back anyway. It’s almost a conditioned reaction, the way his mouth moves against Levi’s, and sighs in between, small, sleepy noises that bubble against Levi’s lips.

“You’re home,” says Eren.

Levi makes an agreeable noise but keeps kissing him, hands either side of Eren’s face as he slowly settles down onto Eren’s lap, knees folded either side of his thighs. Eren sighs again and his hands go right to Levi’s waist, slipping under his shirt to skirt along his skin. “I’ve missed this,” Eren whispers.

“I’m sorry,” Levi says.

“Don’t be,” Eren whispers, still kissing him, touching him.

“I’ll make it up to you,” Levi promises.

“Okay, yeah, in that case be very sorry. Make it up to me big time. Twice, even.”

(Levi laughs then, but later that night he rides Eren with agonizing slowness in their bed, Eren’s hands trembling on his thighs and Levi’s spread like butterflies on his chest.

When his orgasm hits the feeling is honestly awe inspiring; terrifying in the vulnerable shudder that arches his back but perfect in the trust he has in Eren to see him through it. It’s not the first time Eren has made him feel like this and when Levi trembles back to reality he presses his lips to Eren’s and prays that it won’t be the last.)

.

It’s late when Levi comes home from work, even by his standards.

The day had been long and the clients tiring and by the time he slouches through the front door he wants nothing more than to bathe away the aches that are settling in his bones and curl up beside Eren and _sleep_ before he has to do it all over again.

This plan goes out the window immediately because as soon as he wrestles the door open he smells something warm and spicy and hears a sound of running water.

Frowning, he tosses his keys and coat on the sideboard by the door and follows both the smell and the sound. His first stop is the kitchen where a pot steams on the stove, although the room itself is empty. He pauses to peer inside and sees what looks like curry bubbling.

“Eren?” He calls.

“ _In the bathroom,”_ shouts Eren from the sound of rushing water.

Levi follows after it, expecting to find Eren in the shower but when he pushes open the door instead finds him bent at the waist running water for the bath. Eren glances over his shoulder at Levi and smiles. “Welcome home.”

“Yeah,” Levi says distractedly, “what are you doing?”

“What does it look like?”

“Burning dinner and drowning yourself?”

Eren laughs, and the delicious way it rolls loosens some of the stiffness in Levi’s gut. “Don’t be an asshole, asshole. The curry won’t be ready for a while yet. I thought you could use a bath in the meantime.”

Levi could. He really, really could. But he hesitates. “It’s eleven at night, Eren.”

“So?”

“So,” Levi says, “you’re usually in bed, not trying to wine and dine me.” Levi means it as a joke but Eren’s cheeks go red instantly because he has never been a very good liar. “Oh my god,” Levi marvels, “you really _are_ trying to wine and dine me.”

“Just shut up and take off your clothes,” Eren snaps, turning back to the bathtub and squeaking the taps off. “That is unless you’d rather go to bed hungry and uncomfortable. And possibly on the couch.”

Levi immediately reaches up to undo his tie. It’s not like he’d really wanted to protest anyway, but he never passes up the chance to make fun of Eren when he can.

Eren takes Levi’s clothes and folds them neatly on top of the hamper while Levi slips into the bath. The water smells of lavender which is odd but not unpleasant. What’s even odder, though, is when Eren rolls up his sleeves and gets to work massaging Levi’s shoulders.

“What’s all this for, exactly?” He groans as Eren’s fingers skillfully unbundle the knots in his neck. “Not that I’m complaining, but you’re being awfully nice.” He pauses to let out a breath as Eren manages to ease out a kink in his spine. “Especially considering I’ve been comparatively awful to you lately.”

Like this Levi can’t see him, but Eren makes a small, thoughtful noise. “You have been pretty awful lately.”

“You’re not meant to _agree.”_

“Oh, I’m sorry. I mean to say, I love the fact you come home at midnight and haven’t done the laundry in a month. Also, I’ve always wanted a boyfriend that snaps more than your average grizzly.”

Levi wants to be offended but it’s hard when Eren has his hands on him. “You’re dodging the question.”

“Well,” Eren says, and he must have leant it because Levi feels his lips press just below his ear, “maybe I’m more in the mood to ask questions rather than answer them.”

“What?” Levi says, vaguely blissed out and confused, but a timer sounds loudly from the kitchen and he feels Eren pull away.

“Food’s about done. It’ll be ready by the time you’re out,” he says, and he kisses Levi on the back of his head and vanishes out the bathroom door. Levi stares bemusedly after him.

The bath is good, Eren’s massage better, but by the time Levi makes it to the kitchen dressed only in his bathrobe Eren had thoughtfully left tossed on the chair beside the bath, he concludes that the look of the food is clearly the best.

“Oh,” he sighs, sinking into the chair across from Eren and looking at his plate. “Oh _god_. Since when can you _cook_?”

Eren smiles at him fondly. “It’s just curry. It’s not rocket science, Levi.”

Levi flips him off and reaches for his fork without looking his way. He’s delighted to discover the food tastes as good as it looks.

Between the bath, the massage and the food Levi is feeling almost buzzed. It takes half the meal for him to realize that while Levi has sunk into his chair and totally relaxation, Eren has sat stiff as a board and fiddled with the tablecloth all the while.

(since when have they even _had_ a tablecloth?)

“Eren?” He asks, pausing with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Is everything alright?”

Eren smiles, and it’s a nervous and wobbly thing. “Levi,” he says, and then he takes in a breath so big it sucks in all the air around them, “marry me.”

Levi stares, completely frozen where he sits. After a moment he slowly sets aside his fork and then, completely sure he’s heard wrong, asks, “what?”

“Marry me,” Eren says again, more determined this time, “please. I mean, would you marry me please.”

Levi stares at him more and then realization hits him like a truck. The bath, the niceness, even the fucking curry. “Oh my god,” he says, and Eren goes still.

“Yes?”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Levi says again, “it’s our fucking anniversary. It’s our fucking anniversary, and _I forgot_.”

Eren laughs, sudden and loud and as perfect as it is out of place. He takes Levi’s hand across the table with a sense of déjà vu. “Yes,” Eren says, “and also, technically yes. I guess you did forget our anniversary. But that’s not what I’m talking about here, Levi.”

Levi stares at him, and then stares down at where their hands are linked. Stupidly he asks, “you want to marry me?”

Eren’s cheeks dimple and go a little red. “I’ve wanted to marry you since I asked you out the first time. This is just me _trying_ to marry you.”

Levi wants to laugh, cry, do anything but sit there stupid and holding Eren’s hand like it’s a lifeline.

“So,” Eren says when Levi makes no move to do anything else, and he sounds boyishly nervous even though Levi has loved him with every breath he’s taken since they met, “Levi Ackerman, will you marry me?”

Levi stares at him for a second and then he says, “No.” Eren freezes and Levi gives him a watery grin. “If we’re doing this, then _you_ marry _me_.”


End file.
